Visitation

Not so long ago a number of the civilian crew of the Destiny elected to stay behind on a world which appeared seemingly out of nowhere. They were led by Dr Robert Caine a charismatic man with a strong religious faith, he believed the world was placed in the path of Destiny as a home for the lost. In Visitation months later a shuttle appears (as if by magic) alongside Destiny which is now in another galaxy, on board the shuttle are the people that were left behind.

The people led by Caine claim not to remember recent events, they went to sleep the night before then awoke to find themselves in the shuttle alongside Destiny. They are checked out and seem to be healthy but for obvious reasons there is a certain level of scepticism, they should not be here and if they are who they say there are how and why are they here? Eli approaches Val (Camille Sullivan) and after a brief friendly chat blood begins to pour from her nose and then scalp, she starts screaming and collapses dead on the floor. Her friend Peter (Tobias Slezak) struggles to recall events on the planet but under memory regression he recalls his relationship with Val and her death after she was struck by a falling tree which smashed her skull. Peter dies soon after of what looks like hypothermia, it seems the people from the planet are dying on board Destiny in the order they died on the planet. Caine is still sceptical but after Rachel (Michelle Harrison) passes he too undergoes memory regression and learns that they had no cabins or crops and they were slowly freezing to death inside the crippled shuttle. Caine was the last survivor and now the only one left alive on Destiny, he knows he is already dead but takes comfort in the fact that his soul has passed on and maybe the divine or an alien species reanimated the body to allow them to say goodbye. Caine passes soon after leaving only a Kino behind which appeared on the shuttle after it was searched, on the Kino are the last few moments of Caine’s life and a bright light that envelops the shuttle, the recording fades and a quiet contemplative silence encompasses the watchers.

Visitation is a mind bending episode drawing upon the events from the episode Faith yet doesn’t really answer the important question as to what the planet represented or who/what created it. Mind you it did solve one important problem, the Destiny finally got a shuttle which she desperately needed. Yes there was always the Stargate but a space ship needs a shuttle type vehicle or there are limits to where stories can go. The episode of course being vague leaves the question of the divine wide open (as it should be), hard to prove a negative and there is a reasonable scientific explanation again unproven. It may be that at the last Caine used his faith to not only accept his fate but to finally give closure to TJ who is still broken over the loss of her child. We also got an excellent scene with Chloe and Greer, her fate may be sealed as the infection spreads but Greer asking for forgiveness as he accepts his hand will be doing the deed was very moving, wonderful dialogue and performances.

As always we couldn’t do this without our guests, this week our thanks go to Ian and of course continued gratitude to Brad for the audio feedback for Malice and to Mack for the posts over on our Google+ page, appreciated. This weeks promo is for Flash Pulp the always entertaining source of original audio content, movie discussion and a little bit of music. Next week we are joined by Thomas to discuss the mid-season two finale “Resurgence” in which Destiny meets new “friends” and is reunited with old ones. We also had to go to the alternate prize draw winner, alas after three attempts the initial winner failed to get back to us so congratulations to Sarah, we’ll be contacting her shortly.